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Disclaimer

tabs

This weekend my laptop decided to die after the latest batch of Apple system updates. Not sure why, but on the first startup after the update, it wanted to randomly shut off (hard power-down) and could not get out of that cycle. Thanks, Apple.

So I did my first successful restore from a Time Machine backup. However, while I was waiting, I used a vanilla install of Firefox. I noticed that I couldn’t tab through form elements and it would jump straight from the page to the address bar. WTF?

Here is how you enable this tab behavior that you’re used to on Windows:

Go to System Preferences… in the apple menu

Open Keyboard & Mouse

Go to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab

Check All controls

This will let you tab through individual web elements normally. Screenshot below, in case it helps.

Update: Alex Faaborg noted that you can track Bug 437296 if you’d like to follow overriding OS keyboard settings to maintain a consistent user experience in the browser across platforms.